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Chuck’s Place: Tempering the Warrior’s Spirit

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The calmness you seek is all around you… and within you…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The intent of the warrior’s spirit is freedom. COVID-19 is a predatory virus that has taken control of the world, vastly limiting freedom. The human spirit is currently gathering steam to blow through the bottleneck of this quarantine retort.

This is a natural reaction of spirit, to push beyond all limitations. Some explorers push beyond the limits of the physical body to explore their spirit potential. Others stay focused on transcending all supposed boundaries and limitations imposed by the physical world.

The warriors of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage discovered that the most valuable practice to obtain freedom was not in great feats of power in this world, or in any other. Freedom can best be obtained through the tempering of spirit, they discovered, through encounters with a formidable tyrant, such as COVID-19.

The first lesson in such an encounter is to willingly accept COVID-19’s power to infect us all. Our human self-importance has been greatly checked, in respect to the deadly power of this smallest of microbes. Our entire world’s familiar way of life has had to be tabled, denying us the basics of human social interaction.

Losing self-importance enables us to more objectively see what we are up against. To be offended by the predator costs us cascades of emotional energy, spent to no avail. The predator thrives on our offense, both in terms of the emotional energy we deliver to it, and in the co-mingling we may engage in, in defiance of necessary limitation, whereby providing potential new hosts to the predator.

Humbling of the warrior spirit equips the warrior to face the unknown, without the veil of self-importance. Freed of prejudice, the scientist in all of us is on the road to solution. However, great detachment is required to not fall prey to the battle cry of unfairness. In a predatory universe, unfairness is a dominant of reality.

The battle with unfairness is formidable. It is our core human predicament. We are all saddled with the reality that we must attach to this world to survive, yet we must fully release it in death. Where is the fairness in these diametrically opposed demands?

The greatest obstacle to our freedom is the emotional energy the predator can drown us in. When we become emotionally activated by the limits imposed by the predator, we may become possessed by fear, sadness, and rage. The warrior, on the other hand, becomes attuned to the triggers of these emotions and, while not denying them, actively refuses to attach to them.

Fear is a natural reaction to perceived threat. Fear, however, is generally greatly augmented by attachment to thought and imagination. The practice of taking charge of the mind, specifically where it exercises its focus and attachment, can keep fear in modest proportion. Thus, a warrior does not let fear take over the mind.

Sadness is a legitimate emotion, however, a bottomless pit of sadness is inhuman. One caught in this place is likely channeling an entity, such as an archetype, that seeks expression through possession of a human life. To dis-identify with such an archetype is to maintain one’s humanness. Thus, a warrior refuses to relinquish personal power.

Rage is the extreme of anger, often sparked by being overwhelmed by feeling offended. Beyond the affront to self-importance, it’s natural to want to take an action, such as setting a boundary, or acting in self-defense during an objective attack. A warrior strives always to act as fits a situation, devoid of feeling offended.

The world’s encounter with COVID-19 offers all warriors on the path to freedom the opportunity to temper their spirits, in preparation for a successful journey into the unknown. The pitfalls of self-importance and emotional extremes are tempered, as clarity, sobriety, and practicality guide the warrior’s  journey instead.

Use this opportunity to go with the flow, and restore the magic of being a warrior in this wonderful world at this awesome time.

Tempering spirit,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Currency of Attention

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Sign of the times…

“Pay attention” is a frequently delivered command. Indeed, when we pay with our attention we deliver our energy to the object of our focus. Attention is a powerful energetic currency.

Notice, for instance, the impact on your personal energy when you tune into the news, or some form of social media. The impact can be either depleting or empowering. Either way, we spend our energy in our emotional reaction to the news. That expended energy is delivered, on a subtle level, to the person we are reacting to in the news.

Children, most dramatically, seek our attention. Child educators know that getting attention is the child’s goal, good or bad. Once the child has our attention, they thrive on the energy of our focus, as well as on our emotional reactions. Tantrums are energetic goldmines for the tantruming child.

Even inanimate objects can absorb our energy. A trip to a museum is a case in point. Though fascinating and educational, objects of art demand our attention and can deeply drain our energy. We could say that a sculpture at a museum is imbued with self-importance. Were it not so, it wouldn’t be on display. Be careful how much attention you give it!

Self-importance measures the quantity and quality of attention we are paid for being alive. The ego, as the orphaned ruler of the personality, seeks the attention of others to validate its worthiness. This extrinsic dependency is the consequence of the ego’s separation from its wholeness, at the time of birth into this world. A blank slate seeks the approval of others to find its worth.

Shamans have astutely addressed this energetic stalemate. The fragmentation from Spirit-self, that accompanies finite life in a physical world, has led to obsessive dependence upon the attention of others to replace one’s lost Spirit. This attention-seeking behavior is considered by shamans to be humankind’s greatest energy drain.

Shamans discovered that a shift in focus, like the social isolation the world is currently experiencing, can result in the accrual of vast sums of energy within the self. That energy, combined with the intent to reconnect to one’s Spirit, can result in a deeply healing, inner soul retrieval.

To be connected to the life of one’s Spirit is to become guided by omens, the synchronicities from infinity that guide and inform life; to be in the world but not of the world, at an attention-seeking level. Attention-seeking is then completely replaced by the pursuit of right action, the best decision to be made under the presenting circumstances.

To dance with omens is to feel constantly renewed by participation in a fuller life, one that includes one’s essence, at a cosmic level. Attention received is not attention sought, but it is attention provided to guide the way to right action.

Save the currency of your attention for that which truly guides you to your wholeness. This is the world we are morphing into, a world of interconnected oneness. Let’s attend to that!

Attending Spirit,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Energetic Life Comes of Age

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The sky’s the limit!
Photo by Jan Ketchel

The world has “Zoomed” into a virtual habitat of connection. With the physical world on lockdown the human spirit has found its way to energetic community and heart-centered connection.

The technological infrastructure is well advanced to support our necessary journey into virtual reality. However, it has the physical limitation of requiring electricity and machinery to maintain connection.

The ideal energetic connection would shed this physical dependence through the medium of the energy body.

In his out-of-body journeys into the future, Robert Monroe experienced a future time on Earth where human beings lived dominantly in their energy bodies. Their physical bodies were kept securely safe, to be worn like costumes, only occasionally, like we now do at a halloween celebration.

This evolutionary transition into energetic life is our human Spirit’s manifest destiny. Spirit prefers the largesse of infinity to the confinement of limits. The human Spirit is at the gateway to expanded possibility.

Actually, this is likely the same for the Spirit in all beings, human or otherwise. In a dreamscape the other night, I encountered a bug that had invaded my living space. Not wanting to kill the intruder I sought to return it to its natural habitat. I discovered there to be a shallow pond where others of its kind were swimming about.

After returning to its home it immediately climbed out, letting me know that it was moving on to new adventures, beyond the comfort of its known world. Spirit likes comfort but ultimately tires of the familiar. The heart of all addiction is Spirit seeking more, whether it be through substance, materialism, or daring leaps of faith.

Our planet Earth has given herself freely to the insatiable human Spirit. The resources of her body have been the building blocks of our Spirit’s expansive hunger. Her body can no longer surrender itself to our excessive demands, and she knows it’s time for us to let go of our dependence upon her physical bounty and move on to discover our energetic potential.

The basics of this energetic transition begin with dreaming. Dreaming is where the energy body is fully active. The task is to bring waking awareness into the dream space. Though there are many techniques to achieve this, the simplest is through intent.

Don Juan Matus said we reach intent through intending.

State: I intend to remember my dreams. I intend to remain aware when I dream. I intend to journey out-of-body. I intend to meet such-and-such in dreaming. I intend to explore the moon in dreaming. The possibilities are endless. The key here is gentle, patient persistence.

Know that your intent will be realized because we all have an energy body awaiting waking consciousness for direction. Keep your intention free of the heaviness of pressure and judgment. The subtle world of energy requires a much lighter touch than the physical world.

Take full advantage of the physical pause of now to begin the energetic discovery of self. It all begins with intent. Intend, and see what happens!

Intent,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Forget not Your Physical Body

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Take a walk, you never know what Mother Nature might present…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Mother Nature is pushing us deeper into our own energetic nature now, as our access to physical travel, physical objects, and physical contact is greatly restricted. This, however, does not exempt us from taking deep care of the physical body, as it is the source of our energetic potential while alive in this world.

Consider trauma. Frequently, when an individual is confronted with a trauma they are automatically sent into their energy body for safe refuge. In this defensive state of dissociation the physical body embodies and stores the experience. The body as storage unit is burdened with the limitations and physical symptoms of this unprocessed trauma.

Generally, an individual thus burdened experiences life mainly on the mental plane, defending against encounters with the issues tucked away in the body. In such a state, the body might present any number of physical symptoms to the mental plane, seeking to awaken it to its hidden mysteries. Unfortunately, rather than see the concrete missives from the body as keys to access trapped energy, we often find ourselves in the emergency room, seeking relief.

Recapitulation is frequently initiated by body symptoms impervious to medical diagnosis and treatment. Once an event is recapitulated the body is freed of its burden, and energy is released both to the physical body and the energy body. On the physical plane the body moves more freely, perhaps gaining or losing weight according to its needs. Life in the body becomes an experience of sensual delight. The energy body is also freed to journey with awareness, not held in check by the defensive constraints of the mental body.

Although many psychics have great access to the subtle planes of the energy body, they are not necessarily themselves fully in their physical bodies. To be fully in body, without restriction, is the foundation for the greatest freedom in the exploration of life beyond the physical body.

As Mother Earth pushes us inward as she progresses with her own grand healing crisis, let us first attend to the strength and well being of our own physical bodies. To be in peak performance in body, we must nourish ourselves well and utilize our body, actively, throughout the day. Equally important is that we address the issues the body may be carrying, as it embodies our acute and longterm conflicts, the stuff of psychosomatic medicine.

A note of caution here: to be in peak physical condition through a discipline that ignores or overrides the issues stored in body, can be as dissociative as giving no attention to the body at all. Here the body is not seen and experienced as the traveling companion that it is, but as an object to be controlled and mastered. Love thy body, treat it with respect.

Greater access to life in the energy body while still in physical form is our evolutionary thrust  now. The human spirit, with its hunger for adventure, is only beginning to discover its unlimited potential in energetic life. However, to fully equip ourselves for these fantastic voyages we must attend to the matrix of our energy body here on earth, the physical body.

In this respect, all of us, men and women, are mothers to our own energy bodies. Be good mothers to your physical bodies, that you might cultivate your energy body, to have all your dreams come true.

Let the dreams begin,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: In the Midst of Transformation

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The mists of transformation…
– Photo © 2020 by Jan Ketchel

I have always viewed trauma as an unsolicited invitation into a shamanic journey. The traumatic impact of Covid-19 is the world’s usher into our current collective shamanic journey.

Shamanic journeys lead us to discover our greater energetic  potential, beyond the familiarity of everyday life, life currently on world pause. We have been launched into Mother Earth’s healing crisis. We are all from her and of her, in physical form. How could we not be in a healing crisis as well?

The world as we knew it was simply not sustainable. It was time for an intervention, a course correction. The world will survive this crisis, but it will never be the same, nor will we ever be the same. Let us ride this healing intent with courage and love, for all!

For most infected by the virus their journeys through fever and breath may take them through challenging encounters with fear and uncertainty. Stay calm, with the full intent of healing, as you prepare to land on the safe shores of renewed physical life.

For some, this will be their definitive journey into life beyond the physical body. For those on that final leg of their physical sojourn, keep your awareness keen and facing forward, as  you launch into a whole new realm of possibility. No need to look back; we are all right behind you in our inter-dimensional energetic connectedness. How could we all not meet again?

We are being asked to take this journey as solitary beings, remaining connected virtually. This is a form of energetic connection, a gateway to the energy body we journey with in our dreams.

Carlos Castaneda once commented that true poverty was being too attached to wanting objects. We are in a time when our collective object hunger is being asked to turn to energetic connection. This is great training to evolve beyond object dependence.

That dependence has depleted Mother Earth, and so, she leads us now to evolve into greater fulfillment in our energetic connectedness. This is the shamanic journey of transformation we are all currently living. Embrace your solitary being in energetic solidarity with all other beings. We are all in this magical world together.

Energetically connected,

Chuck